# Is crypto dead? Source: https://telegra.ph/Is-crypto-dead-06-29 Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Is-crypto-dead?index=0x649d598f236a6232ef2b021a3f71a90491ef690aa4cb4a969d5d2ab3f332915629eb89c6 Submitted by tim on 2023-06-29 UTC, 1 upvote, 0 comments ## Summary timdaub argues that crypto is not dead, though the space feels deserted and its community has changed since the Twitter-centered era. He says the replies to Ryan Sean Adams' "What is it actually?" thread left him bearish because he saw no genuinely innovative projects in them. He attributes concerns to DeFi's block-space demand, which he says prices out non-finance projects, and to US regulation, which he says has diverted companies like Coinbase from focus. He points to Farcaster, Bluesky and his own app, Kiwi News, as signs of hope, and concludes that the spirit of crypto persists even if Crypto Twitter may be gone for good. ## Article Is crypto dead? timdaub gm, it's morning here, and I've just listened to the Bankless episode with Vitalik Buterin talking about Zuzalu and following it up; I went on Twitter and scrolled through the feed. I found a tweet by Ryan Sean Adams asking: What is it actually? And it caught my attention because, maintaining the Kiwi News feed, I thought: "Mhh, maybe there's some alpha here. Links that I can post to the site." But scrolling through many of these responses, I have to say that it made me quite bearish: What is happening with crypto? Is it dead? See, just the other day; I published a Tweet storm making wallet operators aware of the numerous UX issues we're facing as dapp developers. From my understanding, these are not isolated to my dapp - they are general issues that probably arise from operating system details where wallets may not be allowed to swap user contexts quickly. I remember that back in the day, at least on Android, for a while, it was possible to click buttons on a website, then have an Intent show up, take you to the wallet, sign the transaction and return to the page. However, this functionality now seems entirely gone - and since there are no innovators in the set of wallets I tested, I would assume that this is connected to the operating systems themselves and that they limit these functions intentionally. Still, putting all of these issues aside, ignoring Ryan Sean Adams' thread, too, I have to say that Crypto currently feels pretty much deserted. I mean, there might be other reasons for this, for example, the fact that we all switched from Twitter to other places. But I also find it quite hard to stay informed about the few things that interest me. And I think David Hoffman said it best a while ago: Today, I couldn't help but feel that most people in the space believe more in the first point and not so much in the latter. It may also be that my vantage point is different and that I've always used crypto and its community as an outlet for norm-questioning thinkboi content - at least in the last eight years, that seemed to have worked. But that's why the replies on Adams' thread make me so bearish: Because I don't see any genuinely innovative projects in there. It might also be the "summer hole" (slow news cycle), but my fear is that after the last bubble, most of those who did a lot of the inspiring work earlier just made a bunch of money and checked out. Now, I'd like nothing more than to be wrong here - but still, I have real concerns for the space and the trajectory it is on. First, I do think that DeFi isn't necessarily a force of good for the space. I have thematized that in other posts, but I think that its tendency to take up block space is a gentrifying force that prices out projects not being able to pay MEV-level prices to store data onchain. It is not coincidental that Kiwi News is now built on its own peer-to-peer network and that everyone and their dog is shipping an Optimism fork. We want to be gas-independent from the MEV mercenaries, and frankly, as a non-finance dapp dev, finance has ruined a lot of non-finance use cases on Ethereum. Secondly, I also think that the "crypto ban" in the US is already playing out in many ways. Now, I'm not an expert here, but my hunch is that given competitive pressures, even blue chip companies like Coinbase had temporarily loosened their diligence and started shipping crap. By being regulated, doing IPOs - all of these things also take away from focus. And I'm sorry, but if this 👇 is what new crypto users see when they first open the Coinbase app - then we're not going to make it. Of course, there are beacons of hope here - shiny beacons. I'm genuinely excited for apps like Farcaster - not even because of their great UX and their nice vibes. I think there's something more important happening with Bluesky and even my own app: Kiwi News. We're un-bundling some of the aspects of Ethereum and blockchains. We're using EIP712 signatures and the underlying Patricia Merkle Trie. But we're not storing so much data on Ethereum - we're using it as we see fit, and we're not buying the entire bundle. Still, I do feel like many of the people I've looked up to in the past have become either displaced by the noise on social media - or maybe they're just not that active anymore? What happened? Is crypto dead? I can't find these tweets and messages anymore, but I remember discussing with Nikolai (RIP) and others that crypto found itself at a strategic inflection point. Reading Andy Grove's book ("Only the paranoid survive") at the time - it seemed reasonable. I can't quite say what it is - I mean, I feel like the crypto community is still there and everything: But it has diversified and decentralized, and so a place like Twitter, as it existed in 2019 - that's not here anymore. So I feel like we're past an inflection point, and things have permanently changed. It's as if "the good days are over," and PMF has been found in DeFi; And there are now profitable businesses, regulators are coming in, and crypto has branched out into sub-fields like decentralized science, network states, and other topics. Also: Going to conferences, I'm always surprised by the masses we manage to attract. But things are different now, and we, as an industry, must stop playing around and start building seriously. yeah I'm one of these people I guess... To me, this means much more focus on profitability and what works - tapping into established mental models, it means leaving most of the exciting R&D work aside when existing solutions can be implemented just fine - and when they can make money. It also used to be that you could deploy a shitty-looking site and raise millions - but in a post-SBF-cryptoworld, that's gone now. I feel there's a tendency towards credibility, and in fact, the only reason I started Kiwi News and stepped into the limelight is because I want to avoid having a moron like SBF have such levels of attention within the industry I helped grow. So if anything I can make you take away from this post, then you, dear builder, please note that we need more like you to step out of the shadows and into the light. Those with functioning moral compasses came to this space not to get rich quickly but to help power-share and set us free. To answer the original question, if crypto is dead? I'd say no. Our spirit is still there and many embody it today also in other institutions - you can spot the laser eyes here and there; you just gotta look. But maybe Crypto Twitter is gone for good...